The founding fathers were all men of the establishment who wanted what Robespierre sneeringly called, when his own French Revolution was accused of excess, "a revolution without a revolution." John Steinbeck noted that the American Revolution was different from that of France's or Russia's because the so-caled revolutionaries'did not want a new form of government; they only wanted the same kind, run by themselves."

Is Kurlansky saying that he would have preferred a revolution of the sort led by Robespierre or the Russian revolutionaries?

John Steinbeck noted that the American Revolution was different from that of France's or Russia's because the so-caled revolutionaries'did not want a new form of government; they only wanted the same kind, run by themselves."

If true, that desire was certainly not borne out in facts: no monarch, a bicameral legislature with two active chambers, a judiciary, and many powers ceded to the state level. How does that represent the British Parliamentary system?